Child Care SA Score International Volunteers during the FIFA world Cup

CCSA is a community based organisation, based in the North of KwaZulu Natal – Eshowe. It strives to create a society where children have the opportunities and encouragement to develop into responsible, self-sufficient adults who are able to contribute positively to society and break the cycle of poverty.

As an organisation based in a rural community we had nothing but FEAR when it came to the subject of the FIFA world cup. The fear was mostly caused by the concerns we had regarding the safety of the children during the long school holidays. We service an area that has the highest numbers of orphans and other vulnerable children in the province and these children were at a risk of child trafficking. On Monday (8 March 2010) at the Holy Childhood convent school in Eshowe, two guys in a taxi drove in and said that they were there to collect a girl, they “didn’t know her name”, didn’t “know how old she was” but were there to collect her. The Sister went to the last little girl who was there and asked whether she knew the gentlemen, which she didn’t … they then said they had been sent by a lady by the name of “Dawn” and the little girl said that she didn’t know who that was. The Sister told the men that she was not going to let the little girl go with them and they must leave the premises. They got into the taxi laughing and joking and sped off. It wasn’t 5 minutes later that the little girl’s mother came into the Convent to fetch her daughter and she confirmed that she hadn’t sent anyone to fetch her daughter. This incident increased our fear and the community was shaken by this. Awareness campaigns on human trafficking were done by different stakeholders to alert the parents and children, rural communities benefited from these campaigns.

Fortunately, so far, none of our concerns have been experienced. Due to the international recognition the country has received, the interest for international visitors to lend a hand to community projects has benefited us and the families we serve.

Naomi Rosenthal and Jeremy Raiz, a young couple from Australia was with us from the 07th of June to the 8th of June 2010 before moving on to the Cities for the tournament. Together with their friends, back in Australia, donated funds for CCSA to start home gardens with 30 OVC households. The two days was spent in rural communities under sunny conditions assisting three households to plant vegetable gardens. Jimmy Trask, a 29 year old young man from the United State of America, arrived on the 8th of June 2010 and spent 8 days with us. He came with suitcases full of supplies that ranged from kids stuff and useful information for the development of the organisation. Jimmy worked with the CCSA team to review if our projects were still linked with the new vision of the society. He couldn’t also resist joining our field staff, out in the gravel road, to do follow up home visits with our clients. What we had thought would be a once off visit by the volunteers turned out to be a start of a long relationship which could bear fruits for the organisation.